


The Blue Bicycle

by yellowturtle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s09e15 Thinman, Gen, Weechesters, bits of happy, mostly sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1278712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowturtle/pseuds/yellowturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thought it would be funny. Sam would’ve dropped like a stone into the soft grass and they would’ve laughed about it. “Batman can’t fly, you dumbass,” he would’ve teased. “That’s what you get for not picking Superman.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blue Bicycle

"Here," said John. He pushed the rusted blue bike towards Dean, the wheels squeaking gently.

"What, for me?" 

His father sighed, tucked his hand in his big jacket pocket. “Yes, for you. I saw it at a garage sale. It’s more convenient to pick up food… and… it’ll be easier to take care of Sammy.”

"Wow, thank you!" Dean exclaimed. He greedily grabbed the handlebars, half expecting them to be immediately snatched away. Good things simply didn’t happen to him often enough. He’d learned to be distrustful.

"Son, listen…" John continued hesitantly. "I know that this… I know everything’s not perfect. But I’m doing the best I can. You understand that, right?"

"Of course, sir." Dean was already daydreaming about all the adventures he could have on the creaky rusty blue thing.

"Right. Good." 

 _I’m sorry,_  John didn’t say.

The very same evening, he left his sons to track down a lamia.

*****

John paid off a maid at the motel to keep an eye on his sons. Franny was a good, well-intentioned woman, and she deserved much better treatment than the Winchester boys gave her. They were a handful even for the scariest of guardians, and Franny couldn’t keep them in line no matter how hard she bribed and chided and cajoled. She was often seen screaming at them to “Come back right this second, you little rascals!” while Dean pedaled off into the distance, Sam giggling on the handlebars. 

Truth was, John knew that Franny couldn’t offer much actual adult supervision. Not for a boy who’d seen what Dean had seen. However, whenever he paid someone to watch over the boys, nosy housewives were less likely to call social services.

They didn’t need to deal with that again after last time. Last time had been too close.

There was nothing much to say about the school they attended. It was a crappy little place just like any other crappy little school in podunk towns lost in the Midwest. Dean punched a kid in the face for reasons that escaped his memory, but probably had to do with his bad lunches, limited wardrobe, and general lack of parental supervision. Everything about Dean screamed  _poor_. The other children stayed well away from him after they witnessed the bully whimpering softly on the floor as Dean threatened far worse if he breathed a single word to the grown-ups. Dean didn’t mind the solitude that followed.

On the far edge of town, there was an old man called Mr. Peplowski who owned an old house and an old shed and an old dog called Biscuits. He liked to watch them play on his lawn. He said it made him feel young. Once in a while he would come out, give the boys some lemonade or a pepsi, and sit on his porch whittling little figurines. Bunnies and pistols and even crude little army men, and he would offer them all to Sam and Dean before slamming the door behind him as if he were embarrassed by his own kindness. Dean thought he looked like a cowboy, sitting in the sunset with his knife and his soft boots perpetually covered in dried mud. He liked that there was an otherness about him. He was a pariah, and he didn’t belong anywhere either.

Sam liked the figurines. He kept them until he ran off to college. He also liked the dog. As for the general shadiness of their host, Sam thought the old man seemed downright respectable compared to some of the hunters John’s work had them rub elbows with.

Franny, on the other hand, thought him to be a bad influence. Mr. Peplowski was a bit strange in the head, she said, he owned far too many guns, and he was an all-around dangerous individual for two nice boys to be around. “It’s ok, Ms. Franny,” Dean replied evenly, ”I can shoot straighter than him.”

To this day, Franny remembers the serious green eyes in the middle of the sweet freckled face, and hopes with all her heart that the little Winchester boy from so many years ago had only been joking.

*****

"I want to be Batman!" Sammy whined.

Dean sighed. “You can’t be Batman. You’re not awesome enough to be Batman. You can be Superman, yeah?”

"You always get to be Batman. I wanna be Batman!"

Dean, as with all things that pertained to Sam, begrudgingly gave in.

They found things around the motel to make their costumes. They drew the symbols on the stationary with highlighters and markers and red pens before taping them to their shirts. They made a cape for Sammy from a big garbage bag. Dean even found a Batman mask at the dollar store. Sam quickly deemed it the best Halloween ever.

Though Sam hadn’t experienced very many Halloweens, Dean had to agree that this was a pretty good one. Once they’d sat in the car for an entire evening while dad was away on some business, and they’d jealously watched other kids parading around with their costumes and parents and happiness.

When they knocked on Mr. Peplowski’s door, paper bags filled with candy, there was no answer.

"Maybe he’s not home," Sammy mumbled, disappointed for the first time that day.

"Maybe he doesn’t like trick-or-treating. He doesn’t even have any decorations. Sometimes grumpy old men don’t like being around kids, Batsy."

"But he likes us!" 

"Yeah, but we’re superheroes. We’re not like normal people."

Sammy climbed through the window of the old man’s shed, and came out clutching the Betamax camera against his chest. Sammy had taken a few shaky videos of Dean when he’d first taught himself how to bike, laughing so uproariously at his brother’s clumsy tumbles that his cheeks went red and his curls shook.

"Hey Superman, I’m going to fly!" he announced proudly.

*****

"I’m so sorry, Sammy."

He thought it would be funny. Sam would’ve dropped like a stone into the soft grass and they would’ve laughed about it. “Batman can’t fly, you dumbass,” he would’ve teased. “That’s what you get for not picking Superman.”

But Sam was so much smaller, so much more fragile than he imagined. That was why his job was to take care of him. That was why he kept failing.

Sammy shrugged, kicked his feet on the edge of the hospital bed, and craned his neck for Franny, or a doctor who would finally fix up a cast for his arm, or some other distraction. He looked bored. He took the pain like a champ.

"I hope Mr. Peplowski picked up our candy," he commented idly. "I don’t want it to be stolen."

"Sammy, it was my fault. I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have let you…"

"Was it funny when I fell?"

"What?"

" ‘Cause  _I_  thought it was really funny when you fell off your bike all those times.”

Dean couldn’t help but smile. “Batman can’t freaking fly, you dumbass. He’s just a human.”

Sammy laughed, and right then, somehow, the whole miserable thing turned into a good memory.

Decades later, Dean remembered being there to help his brother when he needed it, pedaling so fast to the hospital that he almost thought he could truly fly, the road rushing by under his wheels, on a mission to save somebody like a real superhero. And that was what mattered to him in the end.

*****

"Pack up, we’re leaving now," was the first thing John said to them after disappearing for almost a month. The second thing was, "What the hell happened to his arm, Dean?"

"I fell," Sam butted in. "I tripped on the curb and I fell. It wasn’t Dean’s fault." Dean wondered how many other five year olds would instinctively decide to lie to their father.

"Bullshit. What really happened?"

"He fell off a shed. I didn’t watch him carefully enough," Dean rattled off mechanically. "It was all my fault, sir."

John gave him an earful about responsibility and trust while Dean and Sam quietly packed their few belongings.

"What about the bike?" Sam asked timidly, his eyes fixed on the glint of blue and rusty silver against the ugly bike rack of the motel, while John closed the trunk with more force than necessary.

Dean already knew the answer. He knew he deserved his punishment.

John ushered them into the car. “We’re not taking the stupid bike with us.” He made it sound like the bike meant absolutely nothing.

And just like that, they drove away. The blue bicycle was never mentioned again.


End file.
